Monday, August 17, 2009

Bangsar Seafood Garden

From left to right: deep fried boneless chicken with fruit sauce; deep fried snapper with bean sauce; stir-fried prawns with special curry

Last Thursday I was lucky to be invited to a food tasting at Bangsar Seafood Garden. Its been a while since I've been to one of these. For me it was as much to do with eating as it was meeting some of the other bloggers. I've only been to BSG one other time and I was not impressed. I was eager to see if the second time would be better. After all, this restaurant is clearly successful. Its been in Bangsar for as long as I can remember and everytime I drive past, the restaurant is always nearly full. There were just over 20 of us, 17 cameras, 10 courses and bottles of alcohol on stand by. Actually what am I talking about. Frat Mustard was already drunk when I arrived!

The evening had its hits and misses for me. It started off with the three dishes pictured above. The boneless chicken was reminiscent of a good lemon chicken without the lemony-ess. I love lemon chicken so this dish was definitely a hit for me. Can't go wrong with chicken and mango. The next dish was a fried red snapper with bean sauce. This was mediocre for me. The sauce overpowered the fish which was what happened with the prawns as well. I really appreciated how fresh the prawns were and found the strong curry far too distracting. Others found this to be delicious just the way it is. To each his own right? My two favourite dishes of the night were the stewed chinese cabbage and cream crab. The stewed cabbage was full of flavour from the dried scallops and mushrooms. The cream crab was so fresh it was practically doing the breast stroke in the creamy sauce. I could have eaten the two crabs by myself. Alas, damn the other 9 people on the table. I think we were on a budget that night as we only got 12 miniscule but very pretty butterfly-shaped buns to eat with the crab. 6 steamed and 6 fried. I was lucky to be able to grab a fried one. The salted egg yolk crab was pretty good too. We already had 7 courses by this time so I only managed half a leg and shared the other half with one part of Le Couple Toy.

There was also fried rice with crab claws that had been stir fried with salted egg yolk. I love the crispy bits with the fried rice. The three dishes I liked least were the egg omelet with crab meat - it was a little on the dry side and a waste off crab meat if you ask me; "braised beancurd combinations" which was beancurd drenched in a strange yellow coloured starchy sauce that offered a mild taste of chicken stock and topped with water chestnuts, potatoes and carrots; mango and sago pudding - I'm just not a fan of gloopy Chinese desserts. Overall I preferred the simpler dishes that wasn't overtly creative. The seafood is superbly fresh so I would recommend cooking styles that are lighter on the palate to really taste the sweet flesh of seafood. What I like about this place is that it doesn't have the usual crazy hectic-ness of a Chinese restaurant. Service is attentive and its a great place to bring our Muslim friends for fresh seafood.

For the month of Ramadan, Bangsar Seafood Garden have several promotional set menus to choose from, the price ranges from RM498++ to RM898++ for tables of 10. The great thing is they are throwing in 1kg of crab for free (valued at around RM60 plus). Promotion period is from Aug 20 to Sept 21. See below for details on the menu.